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Monthly Archives: September 2010

I find it interesting that, when I’ve OD’d on people, I don’t even want to listen to music with words.

Instead of going to work today, I had the awesome opportunity to take a class on business writing. A large part of the class was on editing, which is a recent obsession of mine. The instructor was excellent, taking time to discuss punctuation in detail and recommending several great books. It was a small class, about 10 of us, so participation was high. I was in my element. Writing and editing! Love it! But at the end of the day, I was done with people. The hour-long commute didn’t help. But I was so done with people that I scanned the radio stations until I found the local classical music station. And it helped!

I’m weird, we all know this, and here is more proof: driving along in my lovely car being surrounded by quality classical music has long been a dream of mine. When I was driving the Taurus, the idea of driving along in a new car with a good sound system listening to classical music was inspiration. Today, I fulfilled that dream. Thank you Volvo and WFMT. And thanks for getting rid of my headache.

There is nothing like a negative net worth to shatter any sense of self-worth.

Tonight, at FPU, we all turned in slips with the amount of our total debt. The idea was to determine how much debt we had as a small group, so we can work on paying it down. I assume that we would do the same at the end of the 13-week class to see how much progress we’ve made.

I just happened to sit next to the kid with the calculator. I KNOW my number was the highest. Unfortunately for me, the people in my group didn’t have to count their mortgages. That would have made things a little more even. They didn’t have to include their mortgages and I did have to include my student loans. Brutal. Just brutal.

So, like the masochist I am, I had to come home and really figure out my net worth. It was homework for next week too, but I had to do it right away. Ugh. I’m worth more dead than alive. Too bad life insurance policies don’t pay out if you off yourself!

Getting even more yucky…but I have a whole list of goals to achieve to keep me going. These are the things I want to accomplish once I’m out of debt, or at least well on my way.

Here is my public service announcement: avoid student loans at all costs. Take a gap year and work your butt off, get a job while you’re in school and work full time in the summers. Start applying for scholarships your freshman year of high school. Go to a community college for two years. Go to school in-state! Just don’t graduate with a mortgage worth of loans! You don’t have a house to show for it, just a very, very expensive piece of paper.

Baby steps are part of the Financial Peace University (FPU) program. Dave breaks everything down in small steps, and puts them in a specific order to help you stay on the path to financial freedom. The first step is a $1,000 emergency fund, so that an emergency doesn’t send you running right back into debt.

$1,000 seems like a lot from where I’m standing.

I sat down today to look at the hard numbers for the first time this year. It was discouraging. My friends, it’s getting yucky! But it’s a good thing. I have some things I can sell. Not a lot, because I did a lot of cleaning out when I moved, but a few things. Most of what I have are books, which, unfortunately, don’t have a great resale value. They won’t help much on the path to an emergency fund, but maybe they’ll help a little bit.

Even though it feels yucky, I feel good about this. I like knowing exactly what I’m doing. I’m weird and anal retentive, but I honestly enjoy sitting down and working on this stuff. My google calendar now has a standing Thursday night budget meeting scheduled. Looking around in my class, I feel fortunate that I’m doing this while I’m young and single. While having two incomes would be really useful, I have the ability to make unilateral, split-second decisions that married couples don’t. Sure, I need an accountability partner (got one. He’s very good at his job.) to run large purchases by, but mostly it’s up to me. It’s nice, and it’s scary.

It’s official: I’ve decided to get my money under control. I’m doing Dave Ramsey’s Financial Peace University at a local church. This time, I think I’ll have the support of people who actually want to do it! I think that will make a big difference.

I’m excited to make these changes, yet afraid I won’t be able to stick with it. I know it’s going to get hard, or as a confidant tells me: yucky. But it’s never going to get better until I take steps to make it better. So here it is: my first step.